#German.# #A#, Simrock, No 40, p. 92, 'Von Farbe so bleich,' from Bonn and Rheindorf, repeated in Mittler, No 194. The mother, on learning her daughter's plight, imprecates a curse on her. The maid betakes herself to her lover, a trooper, who rides off with her. They come to a cool spring, and she begs for a fresh drink, but, feeling very ill, asks if there is no hamlet near, from which she could have woman's help. The aid of the trooper is rejected in the usual phrase, and he is asked to go aside, and answer when called. If there should be no call, she will be dead. There was no call, and she was found to be dead, with two sons in her bosom. The trooper wrapped the children in her apron, and dug her grave with his sword. #B#, Reifferscheid, Westfälische Volkslieder, p. 106, 'Ach Wunder über Wunder,' from Bökendorf: much the same as to the story. #C#, Mittler, No 195, p. 175, 'Von Farbe so bleich,' a fragment of a copy from Hesse; Zuccalmaglio, p. 187, No 90, 'Die Waisen,' an entire copy, ostensibly from the Lower Rhine, but clearly owing its last fourteen stanzas to the editor. The trooper, in this supplement, leaves the boys with his mother, and goes over seas. The boys grow up, and set out to find their father. In the course of their quest, they pass a night in a hut in a wood, and are overheard saying a prayer for their father and dead mother, by a person who announces herself as their maternal grandmother! After this it is not surprising that the father himself should turn up early the next morning. The same editor, under the name of Montanus, gives in Die deutschen Volksfeste, p. 45 f, a part of this ballad again, with variations which show his hand beyond a doubt. We are here informed that the ballad has above a hundred stanzas, and that the conclusion is that the grandmother repents her curse, makes her peace with the boys, and builds a convent.